Irish Rail has delayed plans to introduce more frequent DART services from April 10.

Drivers were threatening strike action over the plans to operate DARTs every 10 minutes.

Irish Rail spokesperson, Barry Kenny, has said unions have refused to engage in talks to resolve the dispute: “This is a normal timetable change in response to change in demands and they have refused to engage on it.

“And indeed have walked out of workplace relations talks on this.

“So we very much regret this for our customers, we very much wanted to expand the frequency, we will be boosting capacity on peak dart services such as adding carriages on existing peak services.”

Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe said that he remains committed to the 10-minute DART service despite this setback: “This is all part of the process that they need to go through in order to deliver their roster changes that are important for delivering that new service.

“But I remain absolutely committed to improving public transport services to commuters and the ten minute dart is part of how we will do that.”